Bid for U.S. citizenship for Anne Frank

A U.S. lawmaker relaunched an effort to grant Anne Frank posthumous citizenship. Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said he was reviving a failed 2005 effort to grant citizenship to the Holocaust diarist in the wake of the revelation this week of documents showing that Frank’s father made multiple attempts to flee Nazi-occupied Holland for the United States. The legislation would make Anne Frank the seventh honorary U.S. citizen; others have included Winston Churchill, Raoul Wallenberg and Mother Teresa. “She has come to represent the 1.5 million Jewish children killed during the Holocaust that were denied the chance to leave a lasting mark on the world,” Israel said in a statement. “For the many readers of her diary, Anne Frank is a symbol of bravery and hope and is a personal link to the heartbreaking tragedy of the Holocaust.”